Category Archives: references

“Last year, director Oscar Sharp and AI researcher Ross Goodwin released the stunningly weird short film Sunspring. It was a sci-fi tale written entirely by an algorithm that eventually named itself Benjamin. Now the two humans have teamed up with Benjamin again to create a follow-up movie, It’s No Game, about what happens when AI gets mixed up in an impending Hollywood writers’ strike. Ars is excited to debut the movie here, so go ahead and watch. We also talked to the film cast and creators about what it’s like to work with an AI…”

In this talk, Dr. Clara ter Hoeven (University of Amsterdam) presents a model that integrates the advantages and challenges of the increasing use of robot technology for employee well-being. Academic and public commentary about the effects of robot technologies on the labor market typically present opposing scenarios ranging from enriched work experiences to job loss for most of the workforce. On the one hand, some studies show that working with robots can have benefits for employees, such as alleviating physical and/or administrative tasks and enhancing efficiency and control. On the other hand, studies demonstrate that the use of robots at work can cause job insecurity, feelings of alienation, and intensification of work. Thus, it seems paradoxically that robot technology use can restructure work and work roles such that it both enhances and diminishes employee well-being. However, no previous studies have evaluated the effects of robot technology use on employee well-being. In this presentation, a model is proposed to evaluate how the concomitant advantages and challenges of robot technology use explain the relationship with employee well-being, considering different occupational groups and job levels.

“Political bots are manipulating public opinion over major social networking applications. This project enables a new team of social and information scientists to investigate the impact of automated scripts, commonly called bots, on social media. We study both the bot scripts and the people making such bots, and then work with computer scientists to improve the way we catch and stop such bots. Experience suggests that political bots are most likely to appear during an international crisis, and are usually designed to promote the interests of a government in trouble. Political actors have used bots to manipulate conversations, demobilize opposition, and generate false support on popular sites like Twitter and Facebook from the U.S. as well as Sina Weibo from China.”